In case you needed any more evidence that top policymakers are divorced both from reality and from understanding the consequences of their actions, witness Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer’s interview today, in which he stated that “we had a financial crisis which was caused by behavior in the banking and other parts of the financial system and it did enormous damage to this economy.” Sorry, but it wasn’t bad actors in the banking system that caused the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve System was pumping money into the economy as fast as it could, pushing interest rates too low for too long and encouraging excessive risk-taking. Government housing policies were pushing for higher and higher homeownership rates, spurring lenders to reduce their lending standards to meet the government’s targets. And then once the crisis hit the Fed and the federal government tried to wipe their hands of the whole mess and blame everything on a few bad actors. That’s why Dodd-Frank and the whole mess of post-crisis regulations that have come down the pike completely missed the mark. Not only WILL they do nothing to stop a future crisis, they CAN do nothing to stop a future crisis because they misdiagnosed the cause. Dodd-Frank was just an attempt to use the crisis to force through a bevy of legislation that otherwise would have floundered in Congress for years. The worst part of it is that even after everyone will have realized that the bill was a complete flop, it will remain on the books for decades.

The Hoover Institution’s DC office held a short event this morning on “Rules for International Monetary Stability” which highlighted papers from last year’s Hoover Institution Monetary Policy Conference. While much of the discussion devolved into the minutiae of the particular monetary rules that “should” be implemented, there was one thing that stuck out to me that didn’t seem to be picked up on either by the audience or by the presenters. Professor Michael Bordo, in his presentation on monetary policy rules mentioned on several occasions how well the international gold standard worked as a monetary policy rule from 1880 to 1914. However, he also stated that it “stopped working” after World War I.

But as George Selgin and others have pointed out, not only did it work well, it didn’t just “stop working” – it was done away with by governments the world over. The gold standard was a hindrance to government spending, so governments around the world decided to jettison it. That was not a fault of the gold standard, it was a feature, keeping governments from being able to print money ad infinitum. Once governments got off gold, all sorts of mischief ensued – bank holidays, successive devaluations, hyperinflation, etc. I was tempted to ask the presenters: “If the gold standard worked so well, why not use that as the monetary policy rule going forward?” You can hear the scoffing now, and the protestations that the gold standard is impractical and that’s why it was abandoned. But in reality, the gold standard is no different than the Taylor Rule or any other monetary policy rule – once it begins to handcuff the government’s ability to inflate its way out of a recession it will be discarded. Fiscal dominance will always win out.

At the end of the day, discussions about central bank independence are moot. The success of any monetary policy rule, or indeed any monetary policy, is dependent on the government’s AND the central bank’s willingness to voluntarily set very limited boundaries for its own actions and to adhere to those boundaries. Once those boundaries have been crossed, the credibility of the government or the central bank to withdraw and retrench within those boundaries is gone. That’s what we face today. Central banks that have engaged in relentless quantitative easing, credit accommodation, and experimental negative interest rate policies cannot be trusted to return even to a pre-crisis monetary policy stance, let alone anything resembling a stable monetary policy rule.

Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer today said that weak growth in the US economy in the first quarter is likely only temporary, and that the Fed could continue on with its planned rate hikes. Time will tell whether he’s right or wrong, but there is so much evidence out there that the economy is dependent on central bank money printing for its continued health that we can’t help but think that Fischer really isn’t in tune with what’s going on. Once the central bank stock and bond purchases wind down, stock markets will lose their luster, markets will begin to panic, and in the absence of any further quantitative easing the malinvestments that have been propagated through a decade of easy money will eventually be brought to light. Fischer, like most economists of the past few decades, doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions because of his failure to believe the teachings of Austrian Business Cycle Theory. That disbelief is irrelevant, however, and the consequences of the Fed’s decisions will occur regardless. When they do, let this post be a reminder that the Vice Chairman of the most powerful central bank in the world didn’t see the crisis coming.

There is perhaps no better way of summing up the direction of any organization than the phrase: “Personnel is policy.” With regard to government, that means that the people who are put into positions of power indicate the direction of actual policy more clearly than the President’s statements. President Ronald Reagan’s tenure was a good example of this. Despite his many public statements in favor of gold, his appointments to key positions and in particular to the Gold Commission were people who undermined his publicly-stated positions. Whether he was aware of this or not is up for debate, especially as we now know of his battle with Alzheimer’s.

That is the danger that might face the current Trump Administration where, despite his many public statements favorable to the gold standard, President Trump may end up appointing officials who hold exactly the opposite view as he does. This is particularly important now that news outlets have been reporting this week that President Trump is set to appoint Randal Quarles to the Federal Reserve Board as Vice Chairman of Regulation. Mr. Quarles’ biography is as establishment as it comes. He received his A.B. from Columbia University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He worked at the Carlyle Group, a leading private equity firm whose close political connections to former senior Administration officials are legendary. His wife is Hope Eccles, grand-niece of Marriner Eccles, the Federal Reserve Board’s Chairman from 1934-1948, after whom the Fed’s headquarters building is named. Mr. Quarles also served as Under Secretary of the US Treasury, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, US Executive Director of the IMF, US Executive Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, etc. Doesn’t exactly sound like a guy who is about to shake things up, right?

While his nomination isn’t official yet, let’s look at some other possible candidates President Trump might appoint to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. We’ve split them into four categories.

1. The Dream Team – those candidates who would be the best possible from the perspective of those of us favoring sound monetary policy.

2. Establishment Favorites – the favorite candidates of the Establishment, or those already under consideration by the Administration.

3. The Compromise Candidates – these candidates are all former Presidents of regional Federal Reserve Banks. While they wouldn’t be the first choices of either the Establishment or of advocates of sound monetary policy, sending former regional Fed Presidents to serve on the Board might send a message to the Board to take into account not just the views of the Washington/New York financial-political elites.

4. The Dark Horses – while perfectly qualified for serving on the Board, these candidates are probably not as well known to the general public, and even to most policymakers, as some of the others.

Remember, President Trump will have at least four appointments to make in his first term, maybe even five if Chairman Yellen resigns her seat after her chairmanship is up, so his decisions on appointments could have a strong impact on the conduct of monetary policy going forward.

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We’ve all run into someone who thinks that all it take to bring about prosperity is to give everyone a million dollars. If everyone is a millionaire, we’ll all be rich and be able to afford anything we want, or so the thinking goes. Any sound economist knows that wouldn’t be the case, however. If everyone were given a million dollars the increased amount of money chasing the existing stock of goods would merely result in a massive rise in prices. No one would be better off, at least not once prices were once again equilibrated. The concept of giving everyone a million dollars is so absurd that no one takes it seriously. That is, they don’t take it seriously when a million dollars is the proposed amount. When the amount is smaller, all of a sudden it becomes a viable and increasingly-discussed policy proposal: helicopter money.

The Japanese response to negative interest rates was to buy personal safes. The German response is to pull money out of bank accounts and stick it in safe deposit boxes. Both are perfectly understandable reactions to the prospect of having to pay interest to a bank for holding deposits. It is particularly interesting in Germany, where the Bundesbank a few years ago admitted that the average real rate of return on savings deposits has been negative for nearly the past 40 years. Now that nominal rates have turned negative too, the facade of savings accounts as a safe place to park money to earn a little bit of income has finally been ripped away.

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States cemented its position as the world’s largest and most powerful economy. The new international monetary order created at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1946 was based in part on the gold-exchange standard of the 1920s, only with the dollar as the sole international reserve currency—since it was as good as gold. All countries tied their currencies to the dollar at fixed exchange rates, with the dollar being defined as FDR had left it, at 1/35 ounce of gold (i.e. $35 per ounce of gold). While individuals in the United States were still unable to own gold or to redeem their dollars for gold, foreign governments were able to cash in their dollars to the U.S. government and receive gold in return, a process that became known as the “gold window.” While the United States would pyramid its dollar issue on top of its gold reserves, other countries were supposed to hold dollars, and not gold, as their primary foreign exchange holdings.

In another ominous sign of a returning housing bubble, Bank of America is introducing a new mortgage that requires only a three percent down payment. The reason for doing so is to get around Federal Housing Administration (FHA) backing for mortgage loans, as banks have been penalized in recent years for errors in originating those loans. This new 3%-down mortgage will be targeted toward lower-income households. On the high end, we’ve already seen no down payment jumbo loans.

Three days ago we celebrated Carl Menger’s birthday. Today we mourn his death. For almost the last two decades of his life, the founder of the Austrian School of Economics, one of the three economists who initiated the marginal revolution, did not publish anything. Why did such a great intellect go silent, almost dropping off the face of the earth?